This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

Blog Day :

3502

Post No. :

14068

I became aware of a Hindi film ‘called Virginia’ (1940) nearly 2 years back. My first impression was that the film may be based on some Hollywood movie. Google search for details of this film did not yield much as most of the results pertained to a few Hollywood films of the same name in or around that name. The film did not find mention in ‘Filmindia’ magazine pertaining to the years 1939-41. Later on, I did get some details about the film in ‘list of Bollywood movies of 1940’ on Wikipedia which described the film as an ‘action’ film directed by K M Multani with a star cast of Manjula, W M Khan, Rajkumari, Pratap and David. Khan Mastana was the music director.

A couple of days back, I came across a High Court Judgement dated March 25, 1942 concerning K M Multani vs. Paramount Talkies of India. Being a law student myself once upon a time, I am interested in reading the court judgements, especially of the court cases pertaining to per-independence days. In the judgement, I got to know some more details about the film ‘Virginia’ (1940) and some interesting twist.

‘Virginia’ (1940) was made under the banner of A E M Multani Productions. The star cast mentioned in the judgement included Manjula, Pratap, W M Khan, David, Jamila and thousands of others. The film story idea was conceived by K M Multani sometime towards the end of 1939. Shooting of the film commenced in April 1940 at Bharatiya Studio. On May 16, 1940, the title of the film ‘Virginia’ was registered with Sub-Registrar in Bombay (Mumbai). The film was completed in August 1940 and advertisement of the film commenced in a limited way in September 1940. Censor Certificate was obtained for the film in November 1940. The film was released in Bombay on March 16, 1941 in Minerva theatre. The film ran for two weeks. The film was to be released elsewhere in India.

K M Multani, the producer-director had decided to produce this film on a grand scale just to prove a point that Indian film industry can also make spectacular films on the scale of Hollywood. The idea was to get ‘ high-brow westernised Indians who patronised the foreign films exclusively, to see in Indian films something which they would not find in Hollywood films even’. The story revolved around an imaginary war between Greeks and Romans about 4000 BC. In the film, Virginia was the name of the heroine.

It so happened that Paramount Pictures also conceived a film with a similar title ‘Virginia’ (1941) in 1939 and in December 1939, the title of the film was registered in the USA. The shooting of the film commenced more or less at the same time in the USA as that of ‘Virginia’ (1940). The film was released in USA in February 1941 and in Calcutta and Mumbai in May 1941. It was a family drama set against the background of an estate in Virginia, one of the States in the USA. The theme of the film was contemporary.

When the Paramount Pictures’ film was released in Calcutta and Bombay in May 1941, K M Multani filed a suit in a Bombay court to restrain the exhibition of Paramount film ‘Virginia’ (1941) with the same name on the ground that it would result in misleading a section of the cinegoers. He also claimed the damages for loss of box office collections of his film due to ‘passing off’ ‘Virginia’ (1941) as ‘Virginia’ (1940).

The lower court dismissed the suit on the grounds that no one can claim the sole monopoly of the title ‘Virginia’ as it is a geographical name. There was no reason to believe that Paramount’s film could mislead the cinegoers as the film is in English and the Multani’s film is in Hindustani. Also the story of the both the films are quite different. Even the advertisements of both the films make it very clear that both these films are different in terms of the language, the star cast and the themes of the films. The other point was that both the films were conceptualised, shot and released almost contemporaneously without the knowledge of each other. So there was no mala fide intention.

K M Multani filed an appeal in Bombay High Court against the judgement of the lower court. The High Court upheld the judgment of the lower court and dismissed the appeal with costs. Those interested in reading the detailed judgements, both of the lower court and the High Court can read here.

I am not sure whether K M Multani got ‘Virginia’ (1940) released at other places in India. The fact that the film ran only for two weeks in one theatre in Bombay would indicate that the film was a box office failure. I find that, later K M Multani re-joined Minerva Movietone to direct ‘Vasiyat’ (1940) and there after ‘Ujaala’ (1942). His filmy career almost came to an end with his home production ‘Umang’ (1944). I came to know from the former ‘Filmfare’ editor, B K Karanjia’s book ‘Counting My Blessings’ that K M Multani became the founding editor of trade journal ‘ Film Age’ and retired from film industry to become an estate agent.

‘Virginia’ (1940) had 8 songs written by Ehsaan Rizvi which were set to music by Khan Mastana. None of the songs has yet been represented on the Blog. Today, I present the first song from the film ‘diwaani tu kyaa jaane’ to appear on the Blog. The name of the playback singer is not mentioned. There are two other songs in the film which were identified to be that of Miss Iqbal (or Iqbal Bibi) who has a high-pitched voice. As against this, the voice in the song under discussion is a soft one.

Since Manjula (Manju Diwan, wife of Karan Diwan) is in the cast of the film, I checked her voices in the songs from the films ‘Gaali’ (1944) and ‘Chaand’ (1944). I am convinced that the voice in the song under discussion is that of Manjula (Manju). At the time of making of the film, Manjula was 16 years old and the voice sounds like that of a teenager.

A feature of this song is that there is a long prelude music (0:33) followed by a long interlude (0:42) and the end music (0:20). As a result, the lyrics of the song has space in the disc for about 2:00 minutes.

This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

Blog Day :

3477

Post No. :

13968

The year 1940 can be regarded as a benchmark year for Hindi film industry to assess its progress in the talkie era as it marked about a decade since talkies came into being. Although studio systems (in which artists were on the payrolls of the studios) continued, slowly the star system was evolving in which the star actor commanded the salary acccording to his success rate in box office collections. During this period, actors with star values emerged. They commanded good salary from their respective studios to ward off poaching by the competing film production companies. Films with K L Saigal, Prithviraj Kapoor, Chandramohan, Surendra, Motilal, Ashok Kumar, Durga Khote, Madhuri, Sabita Devi, Kanan Devi, Shobhana Samarth, Leela Chitnis, Naseem Bano etc were expected to be box office hits.

If one goes by the estimates done by ‘Filmindia’ magazine of prominent stars’ salaries in the early 40s, most of these stars were getting a monthly salary ranging from Rs.3000-5000/- from their respective studios. (If we relate it to the cost of indexing to 2013, the amount is equivalent to about Rs.48000-80000/- per month). With the World War-II, the cost of production of films had shot up. There was an acute shortage of raw films. Many film production companies had reported to have bought raw films in the black market.

On the one hand, the cost of film production went up, with less purchasing power at the hands of cinegoers due to World War-II, perhaps they became choosy in watching films. Those days, publicity of films was mostly by words of mouth of the cinegoers. As a result, many Hindi films with star actors failed at the box office. For example, a few films listed below with star value released in 1940 failed at the box office:

1 .Bharosa (1940) – Chandramohan, Sardar Akhtar, Mazhar Khan

2. Deepak (1940) – Prithviraj Kapoor

3. Geeta (1940) – Chandramohan, Durga Khote

4. Main Haari (1940) – Naseem Bano

5. Sajni (1940) – Prithviraj Kapoor, Sabita Devi

‘Haar Jeet’ (1940) produced under the banner of New Theatres was one such film which failed at the box office in spite of having star value and a reputed banner. The film was directed by Amar Mullick. The star cast included Kanan Devi, Pahadi Sanyal, Nawab, Nemo, Nand Kishore, Meera Dutta, Pannalal etc. The film was based on a Bengali short story ‘Shubhojog’ written by Upendranath Ganguli.

The story of the film was as under:

It is the story of two theatrical companies competing with each other. Kamala (Kanan Devi) is the star actress of the Ruby Theatre. Narendra (Pahadi Sanyal) is the star actor of the Bina Theatre. Narendra leaves Bina Theatre and joins Ruby Theatre. Here he falls in love with Kamala. They get married in a rural setting among the peasantsand stay in the rural area. In keeping with the rural setting, Narendra forbids Kamala from acting in the theatres. However, she does not heed his advice and continues to acts in the plays of the Ruby Theatre. They are separated.

After staying among the peasants for some time, Narendra also re-joins Bina Theatre. While the Bina Theatre achieves success, Ruby Theatre goes bankrupt. This is regarded as the punishment for Kamala who has refused to be a dutiful housewife. At the end, Kamala and Narendra are united.[Based on the review of the film in ‘Filmindia’ magazine, November 1940 issue with some additional inputs from ‘Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinemas’].

The ‘Filmindia’ review has blamed inept direction and a weak story line for the failure of the film. I feel that the film’s ending is a reflection on the male dominated society of rural India in the early 20th century which one would often find in Hindi films of 1930s and 1940s.

‘Haar Jeet’ (1940) had 9 songs written by Arzoo Lucknowi and Kidar Sharma. However, individual accreditation to the song is not available. It may be noted that Kidar Sharma had left New Theatres in 1937 after the completion of the shooting of ‘Vidyapati’ (1937). So, I guess, his contribution as a lyricist, if any, may be only marginal and most of songs may have been written by Arzoo Lucknowi. Songs were set to music by R C Boral.

I am presenting the first song ‘mast pawan shaakhen lahraaye’ from the film ‘Haar Jeet’ (1940) which marks the debut for the film in the Blog. The song is sung by Kanan Devi and Pahari Sanyal. The main feature of the song is that it has a long musical prelude of 1:34 and thereafter there are no musical interludes. I guess, this song may have been the earliest one to have the longest duration of the musical prelude in any Hindi film song of that time. Perhaps this record was broken by this song which had a musical prelude of 1:50.

This article is written by Arunkumar Deshmukh, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

Blog Day :

3458

Post No. :

13873

Today’s song is from film Aazaad-40, made by the famous Bombay Talkies.

Bombay Talkies was one of the premiere production companies of India in those times. Its films became very popular and the music was lapped up by the audience. There were other equally famous production houses like Prabhat Films,Ranjit studios and New Theatres of Calcutta, all churning out block busters. While Ranjit showed how to make money, Bombay Talkies added prestige to films.

Language in Hindi films was a great issue in those times and it is here that Bombay Talkies won hands down ! Prabhat films had its Hindi totally influenced by Marathi ( and hence was popular in western India), and New Theatres films had their Hindi straight lifted from books of Hindi Prachar Sabha- too pure ! It was only Bombay Talkies films which used the colloquial language of India- easily understood by the masses and acceptable to all classes equally. While Prabhat called it “Preet” , and New Theatres said ” Prem”, Bombay Talkies used the words like ” Pyar” and “Muhabbat” – a mix of Urdu and Hindi ( called Hindustani). Prabhat dialogues were too formal, while New Theatres’ were highly literary and Bombay Talkies used day to day language understood easily over the length and breadth of India.

Surprisingly,it was not by design. Himanshu Rai’s Hindi was not good. Whenever a new film story was read out to him, he would insist for simpler language so that he understood it. This culminated into the strongest point of Bombay Talkies films !.

Bombay Talkies was run on Hollywood style. Very systematic, disciplined and maintained a conducive atmosphere for best performance by all. All facilities were provided to the staff, with a common canteen for all- high and low. Bombay Talkies believed in recruiting talented people and also developing their own staff. From the begining, it was considered a Heaven for Bangla artistes. But to its credit, it never neglected or denied opportunities to any Non Bangla artistes. This enabled the Film industry- in later years – benefitting with a variety of experts in all fields of cinema making.

In the initial period, Devika Rani used to be the Heroine in all films, but in 1939, Bombay Talkies invited Leela Chitnis to work in film Kangan-39, opposite Ashok Kumar. The usual director Franz Osten had directed it. The film was a hit and Bombay Talkies went ahead with another film Bandhan-40. When the shooting of Bandhan started in end 1939, its Director Franz Osten and all other German Technicians of the studio were arrested by British police and interned at Deolali, near Nashik, Maharashtra. The film was then completed by the assistant director N.R.Acharya, who graduated to Director’s post. Even this film was a Hit. Yet another film was launched with the pair of Askok Kumar and Leela Chitnis, viz. Aazaad-40 and this film too was directed by N.R.Acharya.

N.R.Acharya – was a Hindi director born in Karachi. He was a government contractor when he joined East India film Company in Calcutta (1934). Later he worked as production manager at Bombay Talkies, where he directed the first examples of S. Mukherjee’s new regime, e.g. Bandhan and the Abbas script Naya Sansar. He became a producer with KISHORE SAHU’s Kunwara Baap (1942). He continued producing under the Acharya Arts Production banner until 1950. He also made Gujarati films, e.g. Lagna Mandap. In 1942, when there was a split in Bombay Talkies and one group left to establish Filmistan, Acharya too left but did not join any group and he became a free lancer. Later he started a company,’N.R.Acharya Productions.’

In early 1940, Bombay Talkies’ expert writer and Himansu Rai’s long time associate Niranjan Pal left Bombay Talkies, and Sardendu Bannerjee, a noted Novelist from Bengal was recruited. However his first film Aazaad-40 did not click unlike other films of the lead pair. The film had a cast of Ashok Kumar, Leela Chitnis, Hansa Wadkar, Rama Shukul, Mumtaz Ali, Nazir Bedi, Ramchandra Pal, Nana Palshikar etc etc. Hansa Wadkar was new to Bombay Talkies, having worked as a Heroine in its earlier film ” Navjeevan-39″, opposite Rama Shukul. She had impressed the company and hence even in film Aazaad she was paired opposite Rama Shukul again.

Hansa Wadkar’s real name was Ratan Bhalchandra Salgaonkar. She was born at Bombay on 24-1-1923 in a family of professional singers or ” Kalawanteen” as they are called in Maharashtra.These Kalawanteens were similar to courtesans or Devdasis. They earned their living by entertaining guests by their singing,but they could not get married. They would have their ” Seths ” or benefactors to look after their living needs and sometimes they would have children also from them. However Hansa’s mother had married an upper caste person Salgaonkar. Hansa’s father was a useless person,who lived on wife’s earnings and drank whole day and night.

Hansa was beautiful and knew singing and dancing. She wanted to work in films. There was a family friend-a distant relative- Bandarkar,who would take Hansa to various studios for finding work. She got a film,” Shaadi ka mamla”-1936 at the age of 13 years. this was actually a Marathi drama ( ” Vijayachi Lagne” by Mama Warerkar) shot as a film,which became a flop. meanwhile Hansa was made pregnant by Bandarkar and to save face,she was married to this 10 year older person. She was just 14 year old then.

her next film was Modern Youth-37. Then she did a few B grade films. Hansa changed her name to Hansa Wadkar,which was her maternal surname. She was not only attractive but also expert in dancing and singing. She was offered films by Bombay Talkies ,where she did 3 films-Durga,Navjeevan and Azaad. Later Prabhat also called her for Sant Sakhu in 1941. She did 3 films for Shantaram-Sant Sakhu,Ramshastri and Matwala Shayar.

Hansa worked with top banners and opposite Top actors in her heydays. She did 28 Hindi films. From 1949 onwards,she did 25 Marathi films, including Record breaking ‘Sangatye Aika-59,Ramshastri-44 etc .

Hansa’s life was was in two extremes.On her professional front,she was very successful,but on her personal front,she was very sad. She always sought Love,but she got deception,heartbreaks and torture. Her first husband Bandarkar was a very suspicious character. Due to him she had many abortions,which spoiled her health. She tried many men in search of Love,but she was a disappointed soul throughout.

Hansa Wadkar wrote her autobiography ” Sangtye Aika ” in 1970. It was the same title of her most successful film in Marathi.The book created many waves in the industry since she was very candid and open in the book. After retirement,she lived with Rajan Javale,a handsome Marathi film actor ( he did many Hindi films too ). She called him Baba. She was always ready to give Interviews,because she wanted that people should know the truth. She died on 23-8-1971.

Shyam Benegal made a film on her autobiography-Bhumika-1977. Hansa’s role was done by Smita Patil and Bandarkar was Amol palekar The film was very successful and won many awards.

Film Aazaad-40 did not become a hit film, because the popular romantic pair of Ashok Kumar and Leela Chitnis was shown as an old couple in the later part of the film, which probably was not liked by the audience. The story of the film is….

AAZAAD(1940) was a Bombay Talkies’ film,in which two composers were there. Ramchandra Pal also composed one song in this film. He also acted in this film.

The screenplay and story were of Sardendu Bannerjee, while the Dialogues and Lyrics were by Jamuna swaroop Kashyap “Natawaa”.

Azad was a story of three friends and the ageold conflict of conservatism v/s Modernism. Vijay(Ashok Kumar) is a wealthy young collegian with modern thinking and rebellion against bad customs.Loknath is a conservative while Jagdish is oscillating between the two.

One day they come accross a girl Jamuna(Leela Chitnis) hunted by a badman. Loknath and and Jagdish stay away,but Vijay rescues her and takes her home.She is stamped a fallen woman,but Vijay knows she is pure and courageous.They fall in love, marry and go away to another villege Ratanpur,to avoid trouble from society.

After 25 years, Jagdish settles as a Lawyer in Calcutta.He has one motherless daughter Seeta(Hansa Wadkar),who is rescued from Train dacoits,by Anand ( Rama Shukul),the Doctor son of Vijay.Jagdish calls him home and learns that he is Vijay and Jamun’s son.He is in a dialemma now.

However love triumphs and the youngsters finally get married in presence of Vijay,Jamuna,Jagdish and Loknath.

This was a film in the tradition of bringing new thinking through films by Bombay Talkies, for which they were known.

Film Azad-40 had 9 songs. only one song was composed by Ramchandra pal and he sang this song. He also acted in the film, but this song is not picturised on him. The song is basically a Kabir bhajan, but patched with some lines by Jamuna prasad Kashyap.

This article is written by Arunkumar Deshmukh, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

Toady’s song is from film ‘Achhoot’ (1940),sung by composer Gyan Dutt and singer actress Vasanti.

The second world war started from 1939, but its effects started being felt in India after 1940 only. The Government became alert and sensitive. Lots of restrictions were put on Imports and Exports. All exports to Germany and Japan were banned. Foreign travel came under Government microscope. Imports were restricted to only essential goods. Raw film stock came under Government control (and naturally became available freely in black market at exorbitant price). Taking advantage of the situation, Government declared that those film production houses who help Government in its war efforts, by making films with pro Govt. themes, would get raw film on priority.Read more on this topic…

This article is written by Arunkumar Deshmukh, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

This article is his 600th writeup in the blog.

Today’s song is from film Aandhi-40. The film was directed by Dinesh Ranjan Roy, music was by K.C.Dey and this song is sung by Pankaj Mallik and Radha Rani.

There is a reason why I selected this song. I wanted a song sung by Radha Rani, so that I get an opportunity to settle the issue of multiple Radha Ranis. ” Same name confusion ” is very common in the world of Hindi cinema. Luckily, the confusion existed only between 1931 and 1960. There are many many cases of same name Directors, Music Directors, Singers and Actors. Information on all names is extremely difficult to come by. Still I managed to write on 15 pairs of Same name Artistes in 3 articles and tried to clarify the confusions.Read more on this topic…

This article is written by Arunkumar Deshmukh, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

Wandering into the world of movies of 1930s and 40s gives me immense pleasure. Digging for difficult to find information about old films, directors, music directors, singers or actors is an interesting challenge for me.While on a chase for such information, I frequently come to dead ends and then have to seek another road to gaining knowledge. It is very sad that in our country, documentation about films of 1930s and 40s is very poor.Read more on this topic…

This article is written by Arunkumar Deshmukh, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

Today’s song is from film ‘Geeta’ (1940), which makes a debut on our Blog. The song is sung by Baby Suman, who too makes a debut here. The lyricist is SK Kalla and the composer is DP Korgaonkar aka K Datta.Read more on this topic…

This article is written by Arunkumar Deshmukh, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

Today’s song will take us back to the earliest decade of Hindi Films. This famous song is from the film Bandhan from 1940, a Bombay Talkies prodcution. The song is in 3 parts. It is composed by Ramchandra Pal, who was the joint MD with Saraswati Devi for this film. All the songs of this film were written by Kavi Pradeep.Read more on this topic…

This article is written by Mahesh Mamadapur, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

Welcome to all readers to the 126th century on the blog. Yes, we now have 12,600 songs on board with this post.

It’s now customary to have a special post or a song on such occasions. The last one saw a bundle of century celebrations in a single post. This time however it will be different in the sense that the highlight will be on the song itself and its historic importance rather than other aspects.Read more on this topic…

This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

I came to know about a film made in 1940 with a title ‘Intezaar’ through Filmindia magazine. Later, it was given a new title ‘Sneh Bandhan’ (1940) and was released with the same name. I did not evince much interest in knowing about the film until I came across the mp3 clip of a beautifully worded song from the film.Read more on this topic…